Tag: Syria

The Library has acquired an electronic version of the 15 volume set Records of Syria, 1918-1973. This work is a selection, by Cambridge Archive Editions, of British diplomatic despatches and includes 12,000 pages of original research carried out at the National Archives in London. The resource is browsable and searchable and up to 50 pages at a time can be downloaded as a PDF document.

Some of the topics addressed in the documents include:

• Issues arising from the proposed Sykes–Picot Agreement, 1916
• The seizure of Damascus from the Turks in 1918
• Arab Government and King Feisal
• French occupation, 1920
• The French Mandate and the struggle for self-government
• Druze rebellion 1925/26
• Proposed Franco-Syrian Treaty, 1936, and the failure of the French to ratify it
• The Vichy administration overthrown, 1941
• The Free French and General de Gaulle
• The French imprison the Syrian Government, 1943
• Bombardment of Damascus and the final break with the French
• Independence in 1946 and the ensuing political instability
• Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din Bitar and the creation of the Ba’th party
• Antun Sa’ada, executed in 1949, and the Parti Populaire Syrien
• Reactions to the war with Israel, 1948, including the coup bringing Colonel Husni Zaim to power
• The rise of the Ba’th Party and union with Egypt in 1958
• Communism and relations with Russia
• The Arab–Israeli War, 1967
• The struggle for power between the Ba’th and the progressives 1968–1971
• The final coup d’état which brought Hafiz al-Asad to power